Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 13, 1994                   TAG: 9404130106
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Sandra Brown Kelley
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WITH ALL THAT FURNITURE, YOU'D THINK THERE'D BE BEDS

It will be next to impossible to find a bed in the entire Triad area, unless it's a place where you need to jam a chair under the door knob for security.

The crush of visitors happens twice a year, in April and October, as furniture and accessory manufacturers do a mating dance with retailers from all over the world at the International Home Furnishings Market. Manufacturers' showrooms are scattered throughout the area, but the action centers on 3 million square feet in connecting buildings in downtown High Point. Furniture and accessories are on display everywhere you look, including in parking lots and in the backs of vehicles parked along the streets.

Traffic is bumper-to-bumper; police whistles sound constantly. It's like New York at Christmas. On every corner, there's someone trying to hand you a flier, a trade publication, a shopping bag, or mints emblazoned with a company logo.

Competition is fierce. This is not where you and I go to buy a chair; it's where retailers who sell to us go to shop. And this isn't the only market they attend, although it's the largest and the one where most of the home-furnishing industry's new products are introduced.

What are some of the things manufacturers are trying out? Here are highlights from the trade publication Furniture/Today and from the manufacturers:

Leather "slouch couches" instead of the tight, neat leather upholstery.

More sophisticated pieces from the ready-to-assemble manufacturers and more ready-to-assemble pieces from the traditional manufacturers.

More furniture that moves, including a bed suspended swing-style from a metal frame.

Contemporary styles. The big ballyhoo is about modern and specifically about the art design pieces done by Dakota Jackson for Lane Co. of Altavista. Jackson, who makes art furniture for the likes of Robert DeNiro and Jerry Seinfeld, has done his first designs for the mass market.

Jackson, who described himself to Furniture/Today as a manufacturer who can "think design," said the pieces will challenge the public with little touches such as doors that "open unexpectedly" and drawer lines that appear random.

Some market watchers have pooh-poohed the idea that modern will appeal to the mainstream, but that's what furniture markets are for - to find out.